Albinia was grateful for the message which gave her an excuse for seeking Ulick out, and endeavouring to conciliate him. Mr. Kendal made no objection, and expressed a hope that he might have become reasonable. She therefore contrived to waylay him in the November darkness, holding out her hand so that he took it at unawares, as if not recollecting that he was offended, but in the midst his grasp relaxed, and his head went up.
‘I have a message for you from Gilbert about your brother Bryan,’ she said, and he could not defend himself from manifesting eager interest, as she told of the tea-party; but that over, it was in stiff formal English that he said, ‘I hope you had a good account.’
It struck a chill, and she answered, almost imploringly, ‘Gilbert is much better, thank you.’
‘I am glad to hear it;’ and he was going to bow and pass on, when she exclaimed,
‘Ulick, why are we strangers?’
‘It was agreed on all hands that things past could not be undone,’ he frigidly replied.
‘Too true,’ she said; ‘but I do not think you know how sorry we are for my poor little boy’s foolish trick.’
‘I owe no displeasure to Maurice. He knew no more what he was doing than if he had been a gust of wind; but if the wind had borne a private paper to my feet, I would never have acted on the contents.’
‘Unhappily,’ said Albinia, ‘some revelations, though received against our will, cannot help being felt. We saw the drawing before we knew how he came by it, and you cannot wonder that it gave pain to find that a scene so distressing to us should have furnished you with amusement. It was absurd in itself, but we had hoped it was a secret, and it wounded us because we thought you would have been tender of our feelings.’
‘You don’t mean that it was fact!’ cried Ulick, stopping suddenly; and as her silence replied, he continued, ‘I give you my word and honour that I never imagined there was a word of truth in the farrago old Biddy told me, and I’ll not deny that I did scrawl the scene down as the very picture of a bit of slander. I only wonder I’d not brought it to yourself.’